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At this sight, her women made a loud cry, and many of the neighbors running to Brutus's door to know what was the matter, the report was soon spread abroad that Porcia was dead; though with her women's help she recovered in a little while, and came to herself again.
Several men of high character had intended to stand to be consuls that year, but upon the appearance of these great competitors, they all desisted, except only Lucius Domitius, who had married Porcia, the sister of Cato, and was by him persuaded to stand it out, and not abandon such an undertaking, which, he said, was not merely to gain the consulship, but to save the liberty of Rome.
Therefore he set himself to persuade Cato, that his daughter Porcia, who was already married to Bibulus, and had borne him two children, might nevertheless be given to him, as a fair plot of land, to bear fruit also for him.
His uncle Cato, whose daughter Porcia he married whether in Cato's lifetime or afterward is doubtful had initiated him from his early youth in the Stoic philosophy, and had instilled into his mind a veneration for it, as though it had been a religion. Brutus had qualities which Cato did not possess.
From hence it was thought convenient that Porcia should return to Rome. She was overcome with grief to part from Brutus, but strove as much as was possible to conceal it; but, in spite of all her constancy, a picture which she found there accidentally betrayed it.
For Porcia, being extremely disturbed with expectation of the event, and not able to bear the greatness of her anxiety, could scarce keep herself within doors; and at every little noise or voice she heard, starting up suddenly, like those possessed with the bacchic frenzy, she asked everyone that came in from the forum what Brutus was doing, and sent one messenger after another to inquire.
See the Life of Cato the Censor by Plutarch, c. 24. 97. But Sintenis supposes that Plutarch may have misunderstood the Roman expression "avunculus maternus." Cato's father had by his wife Livia a daughter Porcia, who married J. Domitius Ahenobarbus. The meaning of Plutarch is perhaps not quite clear. It is described by Virgil, Æneid, v. 553, &c.
Under the part not yet exhumed lie the remains of the earliest of all the Basilicas, the Basilica of Porcia, built by the elder Cato in the immediate vicinity of the Curia, and also those of the famous Basilica Æmilia, which probably extended along the greater part of the east side of the Forum.
Under the corn-bin lies a lady who had two husbands and fifteen children, Antigone in parentes, Porcia in conjuges, Sempronia in liberos; while a few yards further east, less agreeably placed, is an ecclesiastic of the Gorrevod family, who reckoned Prince and Bishop and Baron among his titles.
Rome may vaunt her Porcia, or her Cornelia; but the page of her history can produce no such exaltation of the female character as has been exhibited within the last ten years by French women. Examples, like these, of generosity, fortitude, and greatness of soul, deserve to be recorded to the end of time, as they do honour to the sex, and to human nature.
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